By Marc Jampole
President Obama has decided that there is only one way to
respond to ISIS, a pan-Islamic military organization that now controls parts of
Iraq and Syria, and that’s the way the United States usually responds to
foreign events that displease us: go to war.
Early reactions suggest that Congress and the American
people are going to fall behind the president in lockstep, just like they
did—at least at first--for both Iraqi wars, our
invasion of Grenada and the Viet Nam war.
So once again, we’re diving head first into a violent
quagmire that will end up costing some U.S. lives, a lot of money and many
lives of the people we claim to be helping.
The United States should have tried economic sanctions
first.
The creation of a truly global economy and financial system
over the past 30 years may have disappointed the economic hopes of all
Americans but the very wealthiest, but it has made it much easier to fight
aggressive behavior by states and other governing entities without picking up a
weapon. What is happening in the Ukraine is a good example of the power of
economic sanctions: Instead of continuing to grab pieces of the Ukraine, Russia
has negotiated a treaty that seems to have ended the fighting and set the stage
for a peaceful resolution of a situation far more complicated than what is
depicted in the mainstream American media. Economic sanctions also brought Iran
to the negotiating table to discuss its development of a nuclear capability, a step
towards peace frowned upon only by Islam-haters among the right-wing.
The immediate response to my argument to apply economic
sanctions is that ISIS is not a real state, but a terrorist organization that is
trying to redraw the map in the Middle East; a map, BTW, that was gerrymandered
after World War I by western powers.
But ISIS is as much a part of the new world economic order
as Russia, Iran and China. We keep hearing in the mainstream news that the
biggest advantage ISIS has over other terrorist organizations is that it has a
lot of cash to buy weapons and maintain troops because of oil sales from the
wells it controls. ISIS must be selling the oil to someone. The United States
and our allies against ISIS—which should include most Middle Eastern and
Western European countries—should be able to put enough pressure on whoever is
buying ISIS oil to make them purchase elsewhere. We could also offer oil at
cut-rate prices or other economic help to current ISIS customers. Without oil
revenues, ISIS will quickly deteriorate into another gang of hoodlums.
We should also take into account that war always tends to
destabilize any region. Just as overthrowing Sadam Hussein led to ISIS, the
violent destruction of ISIS could lead to something much worse.
The Quaker lobbying group, the Friends Committee on National
Legislation, has come up with some other actions we can take to defuse ISIS,
including ceasing to ship arms to the Middle East, investing in humanitarian
efforts to help the victims and developing forums for negotiation between the
parties. These all seem like sensible
proposals.
I’m not saying that a combination of economic sanctions, cessation
of arm sales, humanitarian relief and diplomacy will work, but we ought to at
least give it a try. We know that invasion does not work and we know that
bombing does not work. Why are we resorting to these tried-and-wanting
solutions once again?
I urge everyone to write, phone or email their congressional
representatives and U.S. senators and ask them to vote against funding military
action against ISIS and for directing the president to use economic sanctions,
humanitarian aid and diplomacy to address the threat of ISIS.
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